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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYSJuly 16, 2019Matt CampbellArlington, Texas THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Iowa State head coach, Matt Campbell. Coach, welcome, and your thoughts about the upcoming season? MATT CAMPBELL: Thank you. First and foremost, humbled to be here representing Iowa State University, our athletic department and our football program. With me I was able to bring four powerful athletes at Iowa State. We have 21 great seniors on this football team right now that have stayed the course and really have blazed the course of change at Iowa State football. I would like to certainly introduce the four young men that I brought today. We've got on the defensive side of the football, a linebacker, probably the greatest leader in our football program a young man named Marcel Spears, a guy that's been a huge asset to our football program. Also defensive end, a four-year starter for us going into his true senior, JaQuan Bailey. I said this earlier about JaQuan. I don't know if anybody has had more progress and greater change from his freshman year to his senior year than what JaQuan has done and has become an emotional leader on our football team. On the offensive side is Josh Knipfel, offensive lineman who started the last three years for us, kind of the steadied the ship for us and continuing for us to rebuild our offensive line. Then Deshaunte Jones who is a four-year starter at slot receiver and a guy that's made a lot of plays in some critical moments for our football program. I'm really proud of not only our senior class but our football team and our coaches. I think it's been a challenging off-season to not only them but myself in doing a really deep dive into Iowa State football. We wanted it look at the areas, where we can continue to grow and build our culture both on and off the football field, identifying the margins in our football program that we they'd to continue to fill and continue to work on, and I really couldn't be prouder of the growth and the change that we have been able to make in the last seven months. This group has done a great job and I'm sure like every coach that's been up here so far. We are excited to get going here pretty soon and with that said I'll open it up to you guys for any questions you might have for me. Q. Coach, they say that it's easier to prove them wrong than to prove them right. How have you seen the culture of your program grow as you guys have grown in your ability and having higher expectations each year? MATT CAMPBELL: You know, I think that's what's been really fun about from the starting point is building it with player-driven leadership in mind and building it from the inside out, with humility and character. Not really kind of worried about what anybody said outside of our walls but creating a belief and sense of unity inside our walls. I think what that's allowed us to do is navigate the highs and the lows that have come our way. This is a group that we continue to pour into what it means to be an Iowa State Cyclone, what it means to have great humility and character and when that's your starting point it gives you the ability to have a great foundation underneath you to navigate whatever comes your way. Q. You guys are picked third in the preseason, and expectations are really high in Ames. What have been the tangible differences with these kinds of expectations, either within the team or around the campus or Ames itself? How are things different since you guys are viewed at such a lot of at this level? MATT CAMPBELL: Well, I think that's a really good question. I will say this about the expectation, first and foremost, I don't mean this to be negative in any stretch of the imagination, but if we worried about what the expectations of our football program were outside of our walls, the first three years, I think we would have crumbled really fast. So what we've been able to do is handle our own expectations and making our own expectations way loftier than anything that could be said outside of our walls. But I think it's a powerful question that you ask. I think one of the greatest things that's been known when I first got to Iowa State all of the questions were what color uniforms are you wearing, what's your entrance song, people cared about stuff that really doesn't matter, and now we're talking about a football team, we're asking football questions and we're concerned about what's really important. In terms of growing a football culture in a football program the right way. I think it's been a lot more our ability to address the "how." How do you be successful? What does success look like? How do you play hard every day? How do you show up to work every day and present a football program and a culture? We have been able to address the "how" maybe than some of those areas that aren't so important in football. Q. Playing defense in this conference is tough, playing linebacker in conference is tough, but how much does it help to have [Marcel] Spears and Mike Rose in the middle of your defense making things happen for you? MATT CAMPBELL: I think that's the thing for us. It's really great to be able to build on a powerful and strong front seven for us and we feel like not only to have Mike back up the middle and Marcel back up the middle but some of those interior defensive linemen when you talk about Ray Lima, JaQuan Bailey, Eyioma Uwazurike, I think those are great pieces and those are building blocks and what we have done is tried to do a great job, and it's like anything you want to be strong up the middle, in any sport, is continue to create great depth around the strength in the middle of us. That's an area we want to work on in this off-season and excited to see where these guys are at as we enter fall camp. Q. Matt, I wanted to ask you about your running back situation. I know you've lost David Montgomery. How do you plan to replace him? And could you brag about your returning offensive line starters because I think we the media ignore those stats. MATT CAMPBELL: For us, we certainly lose a tremendous football player, a young man in David Montgomery, a young man who was outstanding for us in every day. Fortunately or unfortunately at times we had to play without David last year and I think the thing that was really good for us is it put some of these guys that are competing for that starting spot in position to have to step up and make critical plays. We've got three returners in Kene Nwangwu, Johnnie Lang and Sheldon Croney who have gotten critical experiences in their careers so far that are competing as well as two freshmen, young man named Jirehl Brock who just got on our campus in June and Breece Hall who came in and was an early grad and was in our football program in January. It's a five-man competition. It will be a great competition through fall camp. I think they all have different unique skill sets but the one great thing about David is David could do everything really well. He could catch it. He could run it. He could block. So I think you say what are you looking for? You are looking for that running back that's the complete running back to emerge as the guy that is the guy in critical moments in that starting running back. So that will be a great battle that I don't know if we will find until fall camp. To your other question, it's great to be ushered in around an offensive line that's almost intact coming back. Four seniors, five starters coming back, seven guys that have had playing or starting experience in that group as well so there is a lot of commission right now. It's an area for us to be honest with you that has been an Achilles heel as we continued to build our program. It was probably the farthest away area when we got to Iowa State of rebuilding and it's great to be four years later. I have always said there is no shortcut to rebuilding an offensive line. We're going to have to do it the hard way. And these seniors have been a huge anchor to rebuilding the offensive line and gone through those tough times and I would be remiss not to say how important the tight end position is to that offensive line as well especially to the running backs and creating those gaps and, again in an area where you came in four years ago, there was no scholarship tight ends. Now you're at a point where you think that tight end room has a chance to be pretty good. Q. I had a question about the tight ends, actually. The first thing you did when you arrived at Iowa State was immediately start recruiting at that position. Now it seems like a lot of those guys are starting to come of age. What does that mean for the Iowa State offense? Are we going to see your fully realized vision for the program this year for the first time and what does that look like? MATT CAMPBELL: Well, I think the realization for me is just like what we've always wanted to be in any offense, defense or special team and that's to have the ability to be multiple and to be able to create match-ups and the one thing that I think tight ends give you is a chance to have some multiplicity to what you do offensively. I think for the first time we feel that we have that ability to go into a season and have some multiplicity, have a chance where you can create match-ups for those players to be successful. I do think that's a huge piece to any football team. It's something we have worked hard at Iowa State to be able to do offensively and defensively and in special teams game is have the ability to be multiple and not have the same team each every week but to have the ability to create multiplicity and having these tight ends gives you the opportunity to do that. Q. Matt, so you've done a pretty good job, laid out the model for how to build a culture versus the win now mentality at Iowa State. With the four new coaches that have come in this year, three of them coming from a group of 5 school, one from the FBS, what advice would you have for those guys to not cut corners, bend the rules so to speak and build a culture rather than win now. MATT CAMPBELL: Well, you know, three of the coaches coming in, you know, I've got a really good knowledge of who they are and I think if you look at their track records coming from either the FCS level or the non-Power 5 school, you know, I think similar to us when we came from the University of Toledo and you saw how they built their programs why they've got great opportunities is because they have built their programs to last. What happened at Troy, at Utah State, and certainly what happened at North Dakota State, you're talking about built to last, built on character, built the right way. You're talking about three coaches there that have sustained success at a really high level and I don't think it changes what level you go to. They've certainly done that and obviously with Coach Miles and his past, what he has done, winning a National Championship at LSU, I think his resume speaks for itself. I don't know that certainly as much as I know what those other three coaches have done in certainly building culture and building a program. Q. I wanted to ask you, in your time at Iowa State you've used true freshman quarterback, a transfer quarterback, you have older quarterbacks, kind of spanning the game but in this league that's what teams tend to do. What is your preference? MATT CAMPBELL: Well, I think our preference would be finally to have a quarterback entrenched in the place. We've run the gamut and for the first three years. I don't know if any of it was on purpose to be honest with you. We have been fortunate that we have had guys step in and really do a great job for us when their number has been called starting really with Kyle Kempt and Zeb Noland and last year with Brock [Purdy]. The nice thing about having Brock is Brock was a freshman and now you get the opportunity to build an offense around a guy and you get the opportunity to help him create ownership in an offense and continue to build with him, and I think one thing we have seen in this league, the great quarterbacks, they own it. One of the things that's been fun about competing in this league over the last three years the great quarterback play you're not competing against an offensive coordinator, you're competing against a quarterback that is owning the offense. He's running the show and I think the elite ones we have seen come through this conference they have certainly done that and it's great to have a young man that in our world has a chance to build upon and give him the reigns of our offense. Q. Matt, your name is thrown around last year or so for NFL head coaching jobs a lot. Does the NFL appeal to you? Where does that interest come from on the outside? What do you see when you think about NFL coaching landscape? MATT CAMPBELL: Well, my goal initially wasn't even to be a college head football coach. My goal and dream was to be like my father who was a high school head football coach. I'll be honest with you, I've never put a lot of thought into it. I've always put a lot of thought and effort into, number one, my greatest passion is to develop and help 18-22 year old men go from a young man to a chance to leave as a 22 year old man. That's one of my great passions of what I get to do every day, and humbled and grateful with the administration and a great athletic director in Jamie Pollard at Iowa State that they have done such a great job with our coaching staff and continuing to build something special at Iowa State. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you, and best of luck through the season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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